


Come Home With Me

by godcomplexfics (godtiercomplex)



Series: dysfunctional family funtimes [1]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe, Gen, Memory Loss, this is not how adoption works
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-24 07:57:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9712388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/godtiercomplex/pseuds/godcomplexfics
Summary: Arima didn't think his life would turn out this way, but he's fine with it in the end.Or; In which Arima finds a young child in the middle of the street and takes him home and raises him as his son, despite the advice of his lawyer friend, Akira.(Reposted due to Ao3 mishaps)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Due to Ao3 mishaps, I've lost access to editing key parts of the original fanfic so I'm reposting it!

It was during the beginning of April when Arima Kishou met the child he would later call his son. He had just wrapped up a case, and had finally submitted all the details to his client, and was tired. His rarely seen bed was calling out his name, and his briefcase was heavy with copies of the case files for his still ongoing investigations, and the check from his freshly closed one. But, even still he paused and asked the barefooted child where his parents where.

“D-don’t know.” The small child said and he was shivering in the night air. Arima had draped his cast-off suit jacket over the child’s body before he was even aware of doing so. And then, because he could recognize someone in pain when he saw them, he invited him up to his apartment and fed him dinner. He washed him up and bandaged all his wounds as best he could.

 _In the morning_ , he thought as the child fell asleep on his couch, _I’ll call the police._

 

Morning came and he ended up going to the store and buying clothes for the child-- _Haise_ , he had said while carefully eating burnt toast--and shoes after taking his measurements. Then he ended up studying his case files, while Haise read a book (pronouncing words underneath his breath), and he forgot to call. And as a few days turned into three weeks, he forgot that he had forgotten and settled into a peace that he hadn’t experienced in years. That was until April ended, and May had him finally gathering enough material for a stakeout.

He looked around at his apartment which had gathered more stuff in three weeks than in the almost decade he’d lived here. There were child safe cups, and children’s DVDs, and books. There were coloring books on his coffee table, and vitamins on the kitchen counter. Haise was rubbing his white hair dry after his bath while watching the evening cartoons with great interest. One of the many guest rooms had stopped simply being a guest room and was now just Haise’s. There were printed animal sheets on the mattress and a stuffed rabbit from a trip to the zoo.

Arima realized that he couldn’t just leave like he would have a month ago. He went to his office and scrolled through his contacts until his finger landed on a certain name.

 

“Okay,” Mado Akira said as she stood in the center of his living room in her stocking feet and took stock of the situation, “I’m not one to lecture, but Arima, I’m pretty sure when you asked me to feed Haise for a few days that you forgot to mention that Haise was a five-year-old human child.”

“I’m six!” Haise protested, “I just turned six in April!”

Mado looked at him and then at Arima, “He’s _six_ and he is not a dog. Why do you have a six-year-old in your apartment?”

“I found him.”

“Please tell me that by that you mean you’ve become a foster parent, or that you’re adopting him or that a long-lost sister came and dropped him on your doorstep.”

“No, I found him wandering around outside and I brought him here.” He spoke just a bit slower so that Mado would understand. She did not understand and settled down on his couch and looked at Haise.

“You kidnapped a child. I don’t think even I can get you out of this situation if his parents decide to press charges, Arima.”

“I don’t think they’ve even noticed,” Arima said, because in the back of his head for weeks he’d been looking for a sign that anyone had noticed that this child was missing. But Haise was missed by no one, and no one had filed any reports, and he wasn’t going to take that first step.

“What’s your name?” Mado asked, gentling her voice like she must practice for younger clients of her own.

“Sasaki Haise!” He didn’t even sound worried as he smiled up at her, much more open than he’d been a few weeks ago, “It’s nice to meet you, Miss . . .?”

“I’m Mado Akira, it’s nice to meet you. Do you know where you live?”

“Yes! I live here with Arima. Our address is,” and then Haise rattled it off and Arima couldn’t resist clapping his hands when he was done. He had taught him the phone numbers for the house and for his personal cell as well. Mado sighed.

“I meant your home with your parents, Haise.”

Haise shook his head, and Arima stepped in, “He can’t remember anything before I found him. I’ve tried asking, but so far it seems he’s forgotten it all.”

“Have you taken him to see a doctor? That’s pretty dangerous, Arima.”

“I took him to a clinic shortly after I found him. He had a lot of bruises, both old and fresh, but the doctor said he should get his memories back soon.”

Mado looked at Haise’s whose skin has healed now, lingering touches of whoever had harmed him gone, and sighed. “How long will you be gone?”

“Shouldn’t be more than two days.”

 

It took eight, and by the time he finally made it back to his apartment, finally getting the chance to read all the texts Mado had sent him, he was exhausted. He unlocked his front door and was surprised to see Mado on the couch and Haise nowhere to be seen. Mado had a towel over her face, and there was a slight smell of smoke in the air. He tried not to be alarmed.

“I’m home. Where’s Haise?”

“I’m in here!” And here turned out to be the kitchen, and Haise was stirring a pot on the stove, and there were jars of red pasta sauce next to him. He was on a stepstool that hadn’t been in the kitchen when he’d left. He had on a blue apron, that as Arima looked back into the living room and looked at Mado again, matched the one Mado Akira had on. “I’m making spaghetti!”

He looked into the pot, and could see that he actually was. So he left him alone and went back into the living room. “I’m sorry I was late. I got caught up, and I wasn’t able to use my phone until an hour ago.”

“Don’t tell me anything else, I don’t want to be taken into court for knowing too much. Did you finish the job?” The white towel muffled her voice, and her blond hair was caught up in an ill-conceived notion of a ponytail.

“Yes. Why does it smell like smoke in here?”

“I thought eight straight days of take-out wasn’t healthy. Your oven and I had a disagreement on that matter, however. So, Haise looked up a recipe online and is making spaghetti instead. Why does he know the password to your laptop? Isn’t that irresponsible with all the personal data on there?”

“That’s his laptop. What did you do to my oven?” He wondered if he would have to buy a new one as he looked back into the kitchen to see that yes, Haise was on the laptop he’d brought for him, and was frowning at the screen with the intense concentration he got when he encountered a word he did not recognize.

“Why does a six-year-old have a laptop?”

“How else is he supposed to get online?”

“Why does he need to get online?”

“Well, if he didn’t have it, we wouldn’t be getting to eat dinner.” The world didn’t seem like it was going to end, and Haise seemed in command of the situation, so he picked up his briefcase and went into his office. He got his laptop to charging, and came back out to see Mado helping Haise divide the food onto three plates.

“Next time I can try and make bread to go with it!”

Mado looked at his oven as he settled at the kitchen table and grimaced.

 

He started teaching Haise how to fight with knives when he noticed how interested he was in the fighting styles of the super sentai. The knives were just because he didn’t think his young body could counter everything easily that larger opponents would throw at him. If the time came when Arima could not be there to help him, then he wanted Haise to be able to fight for himself.

Haise had a knife in hand, Arima was about to kick him in the head when there was a familiar knock on the door. He let Haise answer it as he twisted out the stiffness in his body. Mado stepped inside the house, and stared at the chaos that they had left in the wake of their training.

“Haise should not have a knife at his age.”

“I wasn’t aware that there was a proper age to get a knife.”

“You give a child a knife when they turn ten.” She sounded serious, and he considered that as she looked at Haise and frowned, “For right now, he needs to learn other ways of self defense.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“Considering his size . . . traps might work.”  

“Traps?” he said, and stared at Haise who was twirling the knife around and listening to them with interest.

“Like what Team Rocket does?” Haise asked once Mado explained herself. She considered the reference for a moment before nodding. Haise grinned and got to work.

It actually took him and Mado twenty minutes to get out of his trap involving towels and string before she called it a night and crashed in a guest room. Arima sat up with Haise and started to clean the house, the young boy not liking to sleep when there was a mess around. As he picked up books and his eyes fell on Haise’s laptop, a thought came to him.

“Do you want to learn the stuff they teach in schools, Haise? Get a real education?”

Haise folded up towels and looked at him, “Do I have to go to school?”

Arima wasn’t honestly sure if he _could_ go to school. He had no official records on Haise, even almost six months since the boy had come to live with him. There was still no parents searching for him, and he had even started looking for information on his past life himself. “If you want to go to school, we can get you in school.”

“Can I use my laptop at school?”

Arima started to answer and then considered the black machine, “What if you just took classes on your laptop?”

 

It took some help from Mado, but Haise started taking classes online within a few weeks. Arima didn’t like leaving him alone but work called and he answered because money was how best he could protect the life he had made. People in the neighborhood started referring to Haise as his son, and he didn’t know what to make of that at first, but he accepted it. He started carrying around a photo of Haise like some of his older coworkers did, able now to join in on stories of the misadventures of their children. While their children did things like write on walls, and burn ants alive, Haise was a wonder. He read things far beyond his age level, and cooked dinners that became more and more complex as he discovered cultures and differences between them.

Haise’s mind didn’t just develop in isolation, his body did as well with Arima’s and Mado’s training. Other seven-year-old’s probably didn’t know how to flip a grown man on his back, or how to pick a pocket and replace it with something else, but these were all skills that he deemed necessary for Haise’s survival. His traps got more and more creative until Arima had to double check himself before he entered into their apartment.

They went on trips into the city on the days when Arima did not have a case (and sometimes he took Haise with him on minor stakeouts that he was sure wouldn’t endanger him too much). They visited the zoo, they explored libraries. If Haise expressed an interest in anything, Arima was more likely than not to buy it for him. He knew what it had been like to grow up with unfulfilled desires and wishes. He wanted to make up for all the missing years of Haise’s life prior to him, and to make sure that he enjoyed each and every moment from then on.

Haise grew, and he stopped watching superheroes and started becoming one instead. Animals started to invade his house, and he started to regard the guest room that Mado did not sleep in as sort of a makeshift hospital for injured animals Haise would find on his walks throughout the city.

When he turned ten, Mado made good on her offer and gave him a customized set of knives with his name etched into the pearl tipped handles. Haise practiced with them during their trip to the movies, and on the way back. They ate out and then came home to cut a cake. After the mess had all been cleaned up, Haise took himself to bed and he and Mado were left in the living room.

She had had some wine at dinner, so when he offered her a beer, she grumbled and then accepted it. Mado Akira was an interesting person when she was drunk, he’d realized some time ago.

“They thought we were his parents.” She stared around the room as if she expected it to change, as if it would go back to a pre-Haise state. “He called you ‘dad’ by mistake last week as well.”

“He called you ‘mom’ yesterday.” He drank slower than she did, but matched her can for can as the night wore on.

“I’m not a damn mother. I’ve only been out of law school for five years how this happen? I knew I shouldn’t have answered the phone for you that time.”

“You can’t tell me you regret getting to eat Haise’s cooking. Those stuffed mushrooms were the best he’s made yet.”

“Better than the stuffed tomatoes.”

He let that point stand as he drank more and Mado opened up another can.

“I don’t mind him calling me ‘dad’, I call him my son at work.”

Mado set down her can and folded her legs underneath her, “He’s not yours, Arima. You’re going to have to give him back when his parents--.”

“It’s already been four years.” And that made him angry. If Haise had disappeared from his life so suddenly and randomly, he would still be looking, he would still be searching until he had brought his boy back home safe and sound. Whoever Haise’s parents were didn’t deserve him anymore.

“You will give him back if they ask,” Mado said, and then left it at that.

 

Arima wasn’t sure that he would give Haise back if someone demanded it of him. Someone had abandoned him for almost five years, and not bothered to look for him since. It reminded him too much of his own history for him to even begin to think about sending Sasaki Haise back to whatever hell he’d escaped from barefoot and underdressed for the weather. Mado Akira had not been there when he’d wiped blood from the back of Haise’s head, or rubbed ointment into his too thin arms. She had only met Haise during his recovery, and hadn’t been there when he’d been shaking so much all he could do was stutter every other word. She had seen the beginning, but not the true beginning.

So while he valued her opinion, on this matter he would not budge. Haise’s home was with him, and he would protect their home against anyone who said differently.

 

It only made sense once Haise started taking over more and more of the household responsibilities to just give him a monthly allowance as he took on more and more cases. Mado did not think that giving him thousands of dollars made any sense at all, but he was a private investigator who left his child alone at home more often than not, so it made sense to him. Better for Haise to have too much money left over at the end of the month, than to run out and be left starving while Arima was cornering white collar criminals and bringing down empires. Haise was thirteen and he had a good head on his shoulders and was nothing but completely trustworthy. All he did with the money was buy food for the house (for them and for the collection of ever-changing animals in need of saving) and books. There were books everywhere and now that Haise was older, Arima didn’t feel too bad about exchanging horror novels and books about concepts that he felt were appropriate to explore.

Haise’s existence began on the night that they had met, and he never once said that his memories of his life from before had returned, and Arima never once asked. The illusion of this happiness was enough for him, and the years passed quietly on, and he aged, and Haise grew. Mado was a steady constant in their life, because for all her denying it, she had taken on the role of Haise’s other parent with ease and grace. She was there to ensure that Haise moved from grade to grade, completed all the coursework required as high school progressed and then it was through her efforts that he found that Haise wanted to go to university.

Of course, that meant that he would need more official papers than the ones he had forged, and that Mado had sworn were real.

The happiness he had surrounded himself with ended on the day Mado told him she had hired her own investigative team, and that they had a lead on Haise’s roots.

“And how did they find out what I couldn’t?”

“Be honest, Arima, how hard were you really looking?”

“I’m the best at what I do, Mado--.”

“You never really wanted to find his family and you know it. If he hadn’t wanted to go to university, you never would have found them or even thought to look harder.”

As he looked at her, all Arima could think about was Haise when he had been twelve.

_“The lady at the corner store asked about you, Arima. She said she hadn’t seen you in a while. Well, actually, she said she hadn’t see my dad in a while. Akira’s face when she said that was something!”_

_“Is that so?”_

_“It might have been because the lady told Akira that she understood what it was like when the husband was away all the time.” Haise had laughed, “If you’re my dad, then I guess that means Akira is my mom, huh? She acts like a mom at least.”_

“Don’t act like you would have looked if he hadn’t said that either. You’ve been here right along with me for the last eleven years and how hard did you look, Mado?”

Mado looked around the kitchen. The blue apron that Haise had used as child had been replaced by various successors over the years, and the current red-white-checkered one was draped on the counter. The dishes were all washed and waiting to dry. Arima didn’t know what was for dinner, but he knew that Haise wouldn’t stay at the library all day.

“I respected Haise’s wishes,” Mado said, “I asked him when he was twelve if he wanted me to find his birth family and he told me no. When I told him after he told me he wanted to enter University that we would need to find them, he looked disappointed but accepted it. He is not our child, Arima, no matter what you and he think. Someone out there might be missing him, has been missing him for the last eleven years.”

“I doubt that, otherwise they would have been looking for him all this time.”

Mado sighed and tapped the folder he had been ignoring, “In here is a photo and information on who my team thinks is Haise’s mother.”

He reluctantly opened it, prepared to hate the woman on sight. Inside was a sad looking Japanese woman. She was older than him, and her greying black hair was shoved roughly behind one ear as the rest was left to trail down her shoulders. The photo had been taken as she looked somewhere else, but Arima knew that her eyes would be a deep grey.

“Her name is Sasaki--.”

“Tamako.” He said before she could finish, “Or, the former Arima Tamako.”

 

It made sense in a twisted way. It was no wonder he felt such a connection with Haise when they had the blood of the same woman running through their veins. He had broken off almost all communication with his mother and father when he left for university. He had only given them his address and left it at that. There had been no contact or attempts of communication from either of them. As far as he knew, his father had died fifteen years ago when he had been twenty-five, and he had had no awareness of what his mother had did. Apparently, she must have remarried, and her taste in men had remained as horrible as when he had been a child.

The fact that she was Haise’s mother, and that was the bond between them and that he almost owed Haise’s existence to her was not lost to him. He didn’t even know what to say to Haise. He wanted to rip the photo up, and tell Mado Akira to stop her team from investigating. But Haise wanted to go to university and would need things like an official proof of existence before he could do that. Arima and Mado’s influence could only go so far.

So, without betraying himself, Arima pushed up his glasses and looked at the information gathered on his mother.

“You’ve never been married,” Mado said as he did that. They had known each other since their second year of university, so of course she knew that.

“Yes, I’ve never been married. But this woman has, several times over if your team keeps on digging into her past.” He could see the frustration on Mado’s face, so he went easy on her. “She’s my mother as well.”

He didn't explain the full story to Mado, but let her know enough so that she could understand why it turned out for the best that Haise lived with him all this while. If he felt responsible for Haise’s life because he saved him--then his mother’s curse was that she did not know when to stop feeling responsible and worked herself to the death in every single relationship she had. All she could say when he was five, when he was ten, when he was fifteen and bleeding out from the man who gave him his last name, was “I’m so sorry, Kishou.”

She never tried to leave, rather let herself be left and abandoned, setting herself up as the victim in her own tale, while uncaring of the child she let become one as well. He only felt angered on Haise’s behalf, having let go of all the rage against her when he left for university. How dare she have another child? And how dare she not look for him all this time? He couldn't properly express everything he felt, but his anger got across and Mado understood as she studied the picture once more.

“Her maiden name is Kaneki?”

“Yes. Before I was adopted by Arima-san, I was Kaneki Kishou.” It felt strange saying that, he had been three when he’d been adopted, and thus had never gone by Kaneki in almost all the years he’d been alive. “I can’t believe I didn’t realize this before now . . . but Haise is most likely not his real name.”

Mado sighed, and looked at the clock, “We’ll have to tell him.”

“We?”

“I’m involved.” So he left it at that.

 

Haise came home and looked surprised to see them on the couch watching tv before he shrugged off his backpack, and settled on the armchair, “You both look like you have something to tell me.”

“We found your mother,” Arima said, “We’re going to meet with her and get custody.”

“That--that was fast!” The seventeen-year-old in his armchair looked both nervous, and yet excited, “Where is she? How long will it take to get custody?”

“She’s just a few towns over,” Mado had her phone in hand and was frowning, “And we can meet her whenever you want.”

Haise fell silent, and they both watched him.

“Do I have to meet her?” Haise finally asked. Arima shook his head before Mado could speak.

“No, you don’t.”

“Alright, good. I just want to go to university, I’ll meet her if I have to but . . .” Haise trailed off, and Arima understood even if Mado did not.

“You don’t have to meet her.”

 

He wanted to meet with Tamako alone but Mado insisted on coming with him. She had drafted up papers to get Tamako to sign to turn over custody of Sasaki Haise, born Kaneki Ken, to him. The cafe that they met up in was busy, but not chaotic, allowing for a private conversation.

Tamako looked tired as she took her seat and held a cup to her chest, “It’s been such a long time, Kishou. How have you been? Is this your wife? She’s beautiful.”

“I’m not here for small talk.” He pulled out an old photo of Haise and placed it in front of her, "Do you know who this is?"

Tamako picked up the photo and frowned for a long time, "That's my Ken."

"He goes by Haise now."

"Haise?" She didn't look up from the photo of Haise at the zoo, eyes wide and grin wider.

"I found him outside my apartment eleven years ago. He didn't have any memories and he had been beaten severely."

"I thought he was dead," Tamako doesn't seem like she heard him, staring down at the photo still. "I thought that Sasaki had finally killed him . . . I came home from work and Ken was gone and when I asked Sasaki . . ." She got lost in her head for a long time until Mado spoke up.

"You never looked for him?"

"I didn't think there was a point. How is he? How is my Ken?"

"He's fine. He wants to go to university and he needs his birth certificate for that."

"Oh. What university? What will he study?" Tamako was full of questions and he answered them until he had painted a picture of the life that Haise had lived without her. At the end she asked to see him before she'd sign over her rights, and allow him to adopt Haise--Ken.

He almost denied the request, but Mado told him that they were lucky she wasn't pressing charges and just wanted to see Haise before giving him up for the final time.

“You kidnapped him,” she reminded him as they left the cafe, “You’re lucky she just wants to see him.”

“I need to find out if Sasaki Daisuke is still in jail or not,” he said instead, “She said that he doesn’t have custody, but I don’t want this to turn ugly.”

“You know,” Mado said after a moment and before getting into the car, “It’ll look better if you apply for joint-custody with someone else.”

 

Haise wouldn’t let him go with him and Tamako when they arrived at the park she had suggested. They walked off, white and greying heads bent together and didn’t return in the time it took Arima to drink three iced coffees from the vending machine. Mado had gotten caught up with a client and hadn’t been able to come. But she’d given him the papers for Tamako to sign, and Haise had taken the folder with him when they had walked off.

Arima didn’t know what outcome he was hoping for, really. He had faith in the child that he had raised up all this time, but the blood and bond between parent and child wasn’t one so easily broken by most people.

He was answering a text from Mado when Haise returned alone.

“Let’s go home, Arima. I was thinking we could have something Akira likes for dinner tonight since she’s out working today.”

The manilla folder was in Haise’s hands, and Tamako was nowhere in sight. So he didn’t ask what they had talked about, but responded to Mado and then pocketed his phone.

“Will we need to stop by the store?”

“Now that you mention it, we might! She likes red wine right?”

Arima shrugged, and then headed to his car, “If it fits the food she’ll like it.”

“That’s true.”

The ride home was silent after they got done with the store. Haise did not open the folder, and Arima was not inclined to open it himself. They got home to Mado with her feet up and petting one of the stray cats that Haise had taken in recently. Haise handed her the folder, and then went into the kitchen, tying his black apron around him tightly.

Arima looked at his familiar routine in the kitchen as Mado looked over the documents.

“Well,” she said when she was done, “That’s everything then.”

Arima felt more at ease as she said that until he turned to see that she was holding out a small envelope with his name scrawled out in Tamako’s strict handwriting.

“She signed everything?”

“Yes. And she included this for you.”

Mado didn’t look like she was going to lower her hand, so he took the envelope and opened it. He read it a few times, and then scoffed. He put the small note back into the envelope. He took the photos that had been included with it and added those to the photo album a co-worker had given him for his birthday.

There was one of him as a child, and then two of Haise as a baby and then as a toddler. His hair had been fully black then instead of the white and black that spilled across his face sometimes when he was concentrating on a book or training his body.

What had his mother been thinking when she carried these photographs across all the many decades since they had been taken? He wanted to feel something for cutting her neatly out of his life, but he could barely work up pity for her.

“Alright, dinner will be ready in a little bit, Arima, Akira! Wash up please.”

Mado put the papers into her briefcase and then went into the kitchen. He went into the bathroom and then stopped by his study to lock the letter from his mother in his safe. The words she had written were important, but the life that he wished to lead had no time for the past.

He owed her nothing.

Arima went back into the kitchen and settled down to dinner with the two people he had come to regard as his own makeshift family.

 


End file.
